Tree of Life Family Birth Center to open later this year in Jeffersonville

The birth center is scheduled to open at the end of July or the beginning of August.

Friday, March 23rd 2018, 4:32 PM EDT

Updated:

Friday, March 23rd 2018, 5:23 PM EDT

By Jessica Bard

Katie Green is like most mothers: She’s busy with two young children.

In just a few months, she’s expecting her third child, but this delivery won’t be like most.

She'll have a midwife deliver a more natural birth.

”How your body is intended to do things,” Green said.

Green will have help from Beth Bary Quinkert, who delivers babies at Clark Memorial Hospital but will soon move her practice across the street to Tree of Life Family Birth Center. A $900,000 investment will transform a building across the street from Clark Memorial into an independent birth center.

Quinkert said she’ll keep her relationship with Clark Memorial in case of emergency.

“We have a really good success rate at the hospital, but I think we can expand on that at the birth center,” Quinkert said. “If I’m at the birth center and I call [a physician] and say I need a C-section, we're heading to the hospital. They'll meet me at the hospital. We'll do the C-section together."

Tree of Life is for women who don't want an epidural or a C-section.

“We will also have regular beds," Quinkert said. "We won't have hospital beds, so it will look more like a home environment."

There will be birthing tubs, and Quinkert said most patients and babies can go home within just six hours of birth.

“The hospital makes you stay for 48 hours most of the time,” she said.

Quinkert added that it will cost half of what a hospital charges.

“The high deductible plans, sometimes they pay more for their deductible than they'd have to pay at the birth center as a complete cost,” Quinkert said.

The birth center is scheduled to open at the end of July or the beginning of August. There’s a chance Green could be one of the first mothers to deliver at Tree of Life.